Synchronous Condenser Allocation for Improving System Short Circuit Ratio

Abstract

Abstract-With converter-based renewable energy sources increasingly integrated into power systems and conventional power plants gradually phased out, future power systems will experience reduced short circuit strength. The deployment of synchronous condensers can serve as a potential solution. This paper presents an optimal synchronous condenser allocation method for improving system short circuit ratio at converter point of common coupling using a modified short circuit analysis approach. The total cost of installing new synchronous condensers is minimized while the system short circuit ratios are maintained above a certain level. The presented method is implemented on the simplified western Danish power system for a future scenario.

Market design for system security in low carbon electricity grids

“…In resolving near-term system strength issues, operators have looked towards re-scheduling synchronous generation, or installing synchronous condensers (Jia et al, 2018;Kenyon et al, 2020;Richard et al, 2019). In other cases, the tuning of inverter settings and constraints on IBRs has been utilized as alternative measures (Filatoff, 2020).…”

Investigation on the Combined Effect of VSC-Based Sources and Synchronous Condensers Under Grid Unbalanced Faults

“…With 18- (19) substituted into (17), the different terms on both sides of (17) can be categorized in terms of sequence components:…”

“…Even though conventional power plants can be refurbished into synchronous condensers as a costeffective approach [14], [15], the conventional power plants may not always serve as the best locations for SCs and newly-installed ones can be anticipated. In [15]- [17], the optimal allocation of synchronous condensers is of a interest and the results have indicated that there is a need of installing new SCs at the PCCs of HVDC systems or wind farms in future power systems. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the combined effect of VSC-based sources and synchronous condensers taking different VSC control strategies into considerations under unbalanced faults.…”

Optimal Allocation of Synchronous Condensers in Wind Dominated Power Grids

“…Numerous papers have shown that synchronous condensers have the capability to maintain power system security in wind prolific power systems [7], [9], [23]. Therefore, the question of their optimal location naturally arises, which is also highlighted in [9], [24], [25].…”

“…A Genetic Algorithm (GA) to determine the optimal installation of synchronous condensers to enhance Danish power system strength at the lowest cost is proposed in both [9] and [24], whereas [25] implements a search algorithm to determine the optimal synchronous condenser ratings to improve the overall system strength. The IEC 60909 standard is used in [9] to calculate SCR, whereas a modified method based on Thévenin theorem is implemented in [24]. Both these methods deploy static fault analysis.…”